Well this is a turn up for the books, PC found even more unreleased DATs from the Kaleidoscope era including a beautiful version of ‘The Crow’ that should soundtrack many a TV trailer in the future if there’s any justice.
DJ Food
I have this down as the first set I made for Coldcut Solid Steel in its new home at BBC London Live on 10th April 2000 – a busy month what with the release of ‘Kaleidoscope’ just a week before. We’d left KISS FM a year ago when they announced an impending overhaul of the roster, jumping before we were pushed basically. I’m sure it hurt Matt & Jon more than the rest of us as they had been with the station over 10 years and seen it come up from a pirate to a legal entity. As with everything, things had changed there as commercial concerns took over but it was strange not to suddenly have a weekly show broadcasting around London to go to.
All was not lost though, over the previous five years studio editing technology and CD-R burning had become more commonplace and we were all in the position to either record in our home studios or in Coldcut’s Ahead of Our Time set up at Ninja Tune. We’d been doing this since the KISS studios became unavailable and Matt had already set up Ninja’s first website (Don’t Believe The Pipe) and investigated early streaming technology, keen for us not to lose our weekly flow. Streaming wasn’t what it is today though, you had no idea if anyone was listening, the sound quality was terrible and the technology unreliable – it didn’t feel like being on the airwaves of a ‘real’ radio station. But, as in a lot of instances, Coldcut forged ahead and were early adopters, dragging us into the future with them.
When Ninja HQ moved from Clink St. to Kennington at the turn of the decade the studio set up changed so, more often than not, I would record sets at home and bring DATs or CD-Rs into the office for Darren ‘DK’ Knott who was now officially producing the show each week. He would organise who was playing when, co-ordinate guests, assemble each 2 hr show in time for Friday and mail out CD-Rs to stations around the world who subscribed to the weekly sessions.
When we first found out we’d got the London Live slot we were overjoyed that we’d finally, officially, be back on the airwaves. Reborn from GLR (Greater London Radio) and later rebranded as Radio London, then Radio LDN, they were having a mini renaissance with DJs like Dr Bob Jones and Ross Allen in early evening slots that were capturing the 20-30 something club goers.
Our joy was slightly curtailed when we got to the BBC studios to present the show and discovered a rather pedestrian set up with turntables over a meter apart and a broadcasting mixer fitted into the desk between them – definitely no turntable gymnastics with that set up. KISS, being a dance music station, was set up for club DJ-style sets, the mixing desk and mic one side and a table with Technics and DJ mixer the other, plenty of room and maneuverability if you wanted to plug in extra FX or move things around.
It was decided that the best way to keep doing what we did was to prepare the mixes beforehand, that way we could be as radical as we liked and not have to worry about any technological limitations. This also meant we could be a lot more creative, didn’t have to rely on one take mixes thus keeping things tighter and also overdub other tracks if need be. Things could be edited but it also meant that things generally took longer as they could be more complex than before. The mix format suddenly opened up to me because of this and I think I did some of my best work in the next decade.
By this time I was getting increasingly into themed mixes or a set with a connecting or recurring factor, I also started naming the sets as I now had years worth under my belt for Solid Steel, only identifiable by date. The theme for this mix was Brian Wilson’s odd 7” single that came free with the Beach Boys’ Holland LP,. I was deep into my BB obsession at this time, hoovering up the late 60s and 70s LP and mining them for the gems they mostly contained until they went full-cheese as disco took hold. ‘Magic Transistor Radio’ is a children’s fairy tale about a pied piper who lives inside a radio and is Wilson is full blown la-la land mode. I threaded excerpts from it throughout the mix as it was so apt, being that it took part inside a radio.
There are so many great tracks here, Broadway Project’s LP is a forgotten classic IMO, David Holmes’ Organisation-sampling ‘Living Room’, early DJ Format, Tommy Guerrero (arguably the last great record on Mo Wax), Sirconical on Twisted Nerve, 7-Hurtz on Output, Broadcast…
But I’ve gone on WAY too long with this one, have a listen and see what you think. One more thing, I was so enthused I even made a CD cover for this one, I’m sure I intended to do this with all the mixes but only managed two like this. Turn on, tune in and freak out to the Magic Transistor Radio.
Kev
Track list:
Part 1
Brian Wilson – Mount Vernon & Fairway
Broadway Project – Sea of Change pt2
7-Hurtz – Stokes Motor (version)
DJ Format – Extra Lesson
Sirconical – Choppy
Timmy Thomas – Funky Me
Broadcast – Minus 1
Tommy Guerrero – So Blue It’s Black
A.L.O. Orchestra – The Last Time
Brian Wilson – Magic Transistor Radio
David Holmes – Living Room
Part 2
Brian Wilson – I’m the Pied Piper
Meat Beat Manifesto – Oblivion/Humans
Speedy J – Balk Acid
Recloose – Get There Tonight
Family Values – Last Days & Time
Freeform Arkestra – ?
She 1 – Kwaidan
Broadway Project – Clouds
E.A.R. – Sputnik
Gershon Kingsley – The Sound of Silence
Brian Wilson – Radio King Dom
Circles In Squares from Adam Bell Film on Vimeo.
A film about the different aspects of record collecting that I appeared in some years ago, ‘Circles in Squares’ has just been made available to view online. Unfortunately, one of the contributors, Naoki E-Jima recently lost his battle with cancer and any proceeds from the pay per view stream will go to Naoki’s family. It’s £4 for a 48 hr viewing window and it’s a really well made little film https://vimeo.com/ondemand/circlesinsquares
Track Notes:
Very much from a golden age of electronica (The Black Dog’s ‘Spanners’ on Warp, Gescom’s debut EP, Anthony Manning on Irdial) and trip hop (Skylab, DJ Krush, 9 Lazy 9). The spoken word that lays across Skylab’s opening track in this mix is from an odd German test pressing I found back in the 90s, full of spoken word from old gangster films. I spotted the famous Lauren Bacall line, sampled in part by Double Dee & Steinski on ”Lesson 3′ but also later used as a KISS FM jingle with the ‘blow’ substituted for ‘kiss’, and thought it would be a nice nod.
The Anthony Manning track, ‘Untitled’ (track 3) is from his excellent album, ‘Islets In Pink Polypropylene’ on Irdial, there was nothing quite like it at the time and I’m not sure there’s been much since, a lost gem. The Gescom track is from the first ever release on Skam records, which I incidentally designed the labels for, and the 9 Lazy 9 track was from their second LP which was the first cover I ever designed for Ninja Tune.
The Eon track, ‘Inner Mind’, is played on 33rpm rather than 45 intentionally 
as it and the track preceding it – something by Kris Needs apparently which I just can’t identify – both use the same sample.
Track list:
Coldcut – ‘Welcome, I am your genie’ sample jingle
Skylab – River of Bass
Sheila Chandra – Nada Brahma
The Black Dog – Raxmus
(There’s what sounds like a short snatch of The Jedi Knights’ ‘May The Funk Be With You’ in between these two tracks)
Ronnie Jordan meets DJ Krush – S**t Goes Down (But I Got Phunked Up Mix)
Gescom – Sciew Spoc
Anthony Manning – Untitled (track 3)
Kris Needs – Unknown
Eon – Inner Mind (Freebase Mind) (on the wrong speed)
9 Lazy 9 – Electric Lazyland
I held off a day posting this seeing as my social media feed was crammed with Bandcamp posts, didn’t want to add to the noise. But on that note I’ve started a label on the platform, digital-only for the moment, for my multi-armed turntable experiments with. locked grooves + FX. 1st releases are up now including a couple of pay what you want freebies.
https://infiniteillectrik.bandcamp.com/artists
Anyway, here’s Side A to last week’s side B – the ? in the title on the tape refers to me originally not knowing the date this went out and I’ve tracked it down to approximately 21/12/97 via a series of PRS sheets I have with track lists.
This set sports two amazing remixes by Bundy K Brown – the ones with the long Cheech Wizard subtitles, a thing of his back then. Bundy (by then ex-Tortoise) was someone we’d met on our first tour of the US when we showed up in Chicago and we had enough time to hang out a bit and do some record shopping. I really rated him as a producer mainly for his stand out remix on Tortoise’s ‘Rhythms, Resolutions & Clusters’ mini album and we bonded over similar musical tastes.
He turned me onto a lot of electronic jazz and used to work in the Dusty Groove record store so was steeped in digging culture. I put him up for the ‘Timber ‘remix and we resolved to work together on something (‘Full Bleed’ on the Kaleidoscope LP). I just really like his off-kilter rhythms and the cyclic nature of what he does, maybe it’s because he’s a musician approaching sampling from an engineering perspective, whatever it is he has a unique ear and years later I found out Four Tet was a fan too.
This set is such a typical mash up of the times, lots of sample-based material that flits from jazz to electronica to downright huge dirty beats by the end for Skylab and Techno Animal. Bearing in mind this was going out between 1-3am I think we sometimes pushed things to extremes but it was (and still remains) anything goes – the Broadest Beats in London, right?
Kev
BTW: the Techno Animal/Nav Katze mix at the end really goes on too long and the bass distortion near the end is on the tape.
Track list:
The Sea & Cake – Sporting Life (The Cheech Wizard Meets Baby Ultraman In The Cool Blue Cave (Short Stories About Birds, Trees And The Sports Life Wherever You Are)) (Thrill Jockey)
Small Fish With Spine – High Fibre (Oxide)
Frederic Galliano – Espaces Baroques Pt.1 (F Communications)
Coldcut & Hexstatic – Timber (The Cheech Wizard’s Polythump Requiem For The Ancient Forests Mix) (Ninja Tune)
Skylab – Nickers of a Girl (Eye Q)
Techno Animal – Demonoid (City Slang)
Nav Katze – Wild Horses (Global Communications mix) (Dedicated)
I don’t remember much about this session except that the tape states ‘3/4 DnB’, meaning Drum n Bass in 3/4 time. Looking at the track listing it states no less than three tracks in a row from DJ Suv from his Freebeat EP on Full Cycle which seems to be credited as one of the first to feature rhythms in 3/4 time within the genre. We were obviously taken with it to have played three in a row. The opening track is credited to DJ Food as ‘Parp, Thump, Crack ’n’ Hiss’ which I recognise at a typical PC joke. The opening sounds like PC and I messing about with all manner of FX and vinyl over the top and I’m definitely getting a bit carried away with it all.
I think about this time I may have had a mixer with a little loop sampler and FX built in so maybe I bought that into the studio to mess about with but I’ve not idea if this was made up at KISS FM or at Ahead of Our Time studios in the Ninja Tune offices at Clink Street. Either way, the first 10 minutes of this mix are a bit crazy.
Track list:
DJ Food – Parp, Thump, Crack ’n’ Hiss
DJ Suv – Output (Full Cycle)
DJ Suv – Free By Four (Full Cycle)
DJ Suv – Everyone Plays The Same (Full Cycle)
Danny Breaks – The Ratio (Universal Language)
Acustic – No 2 (April Records)
Toshinori Kondo & DJ Krush – Fu Yu (Sony)
Mr Scruff – Fish (Ninja Tune)
Kensuke Shiina – Ring of Fire (Salon Kitty remix) (Pussyfoot)
P.S. Side A next week…
Above is a scan of the tape inlay, an old photo from a US tour I did with Coldcut around the time of their Let Us Play album, – they took their own projection screens and played from laptops for the first time to the amazement of many. In the background you can see Rob Pepperell, part of Hex who controlled the visuals, Coldcut’s Jon More is to my right. On screen you can see the Vestax PMC 06 mixer in between the decks, a super-thin 2 channel mixer popular with scratch DJs at the time due to its tiny size, bringing the turntables closer together to make juggling records easier.
This week is a big one – two mixes but no Solid Steel archive show as I’ve been working on this very special selection and didn’t want to put this behind a paywall. Seeing as the DJ Food album, ‘Kaleidoscope’, turned 20 earlier this month, PC and I thought we’d raid our archives and put together a pair of companion mixes containing early or alternate mixes, versions and unreleased tracks that were made around that era which was roughly 1998-2000.
Patrick has made his own mix and it’s a bit of a revelation as most of the material is unreleased and even I’d not heard half of it. There’s another version of The Crow Dub, an earlier take on his collaboration with Jason Swinscoe which would become Neptune‘s ‘Soul Pride’ later. The original A Splash of Debussy and Monocle ideas and the genesis for what became ‘Cookin‘ in ‘The Power of Rawkus Soul‘. The real treat for me though is the previously unreleased ‘Ents Go To War‘ and ‘Zoom Zoom‘, both of which should never have been left in a drawer for two decades IMO. You can hear that below
Kaleidoscope Companion track list Pt.1 track list:
1) Ents Go To War (00:00 – 05:26)
2) The Crow Dub – The Rook (05:26 – 10:54)
3) See Saw (10:54 – 13:08)
4) Spa (13:08 – 16:04)
5) Night Time (Soul Pride) (16:04 – 19:13)
6) Thumb Piano (19:13 – 21:10
7) A Splash of Debussy (21:10 – 22:48)
8) Zoom Zoom (2:48 – 25:41)
9) Monocle (25:41 – 29:49)
10) Bernard Matthews (9:49 – 30:16)
11) The Power of Rawkus Soul (30:16 – 31:59)
My offering follows on with even more early versions and outtakes…
Full Bleed (Different Vibrations version)
Brixton Baby loop
Hip Operation 3
Sukia – Feelin’ Free remix 1 (big swingle)
god i’m hungry (sample)
The Quadraplex Suite
Stelf (long)
Nevermore (early version) intro
Introvert (early version of Nevermore)
Nevermore (early version) outro
The Ageing Young Rebel (early version w. diff middle/end)
Kenton
A Strange Walk (early version of Feelin’ Free remix 2)
Bad Trip (embryonic version of The Crow)
8 Track Mind (version 1)
Boo Hoo (The Sky At Night early version)
Crow’s End
Track notes:
These recordings are taken from cassettes, DAT tapes and CDRs so the quality and fidelity varies, there’s tape hiss, the odd drop out and distortion but that’s the way they came out. PC remastered a few bits and pieces and some tracks are edits / re-edits. Lots of these versions aren’t fully mixed down or mastered in anyway either but I like that rawness. It was fun revisiting these tapes again, hearing lost parts and versions that we’d completely forgotten about, in certain cases not even played to each other. There’s lots of material, more than you hear here, but you probably don’t need to hear them, believe me. This is the meat so to speak. The late, great John Peel evidently liked the album, playing Break, Cookin’ (twice), The Riff and The Ageing Young Rebel over the weeks preceding the album’s release, even asking us in for a session (see the debut Mixcloud Select upload) and I’ve included a few of his comments from broadcasts I only recently found online.
Full Bleed (Different Vibrations version)
• Probably the earliest version of the track that I compiled featuring Bundy K. Brown’s parts, I sent this to him for his opinion and I remember there was one specific melodic part that I’d pu in twice and he wanted just once near the end. You can hear the basics are in there, spoken word parts were different and it’s kind of rough and loose, especially at the end where I hadn’t finished the arrangement yet. I like the way it’s kind only just hanging in there and almost falling apart by the end (no quantize here). I realised that Bundy was varying the tempo of his drums between 84 and 86 bpm when I was putting it together as it was really messing with the click track, he said it was to give it a live-er feel. We both started from the same breakbeat and worked on that as a foundation, then I comped it up in my studio and Bundy came over to the UK when he was working on a High Llamas album and did some time on the arrangement before I finished it off.
Brixton Baby loop
• We loved Roy Ayres’ moody ‘We Live in Brooklyn Baby’ and PC wanted to do something in that vein. One of the first tracks we worked on had the working title ‘We Live In Brixton Baby’ as much of the album was recorded in Patrick’s flat on Josephine Avenue in Brixton. This was just a loop he made of the Roy Ayres rhythm that I found on a tape, the track we worked up had none of this funk.
Hip Operation 3
• This was an early track which had a long, protracted birth, various versions and ultimately didn’t make the final cut. It started out as a thing called ‘Swingle’ which was a chunk of big band and easy listening samples that ended up morphing in the first version of Sukia’s ‘Feelin’ Free’ remix we made. Like a lot of peers at this time we were discovering the early electronic period Herbie Hancock and wanted to use something from ‘Raindance’ on his excellent Mwandishi Band album, ‘Sextant’. We then loaded it up with a ton of spoken word including Ken Nordine and excepts from a Beastie Boys interview disc and had a breakdown that featured the sounds of Patrick playing squash. I love the strings at the end, we were still finding our feet on this, it’s pretty finished but we never really saw it as a contender for the album when the time came to compile the tracks.
Sukia – Feelin’ Free remix 1 (Big Swingle)
• This is the second half of the original, unreleased version, the breakdown and ending, otherwise we’d just be repeating ourselves a bit. There’s some very distorted low end bass on this, it’s not your speakers.
God i’m Hungry (sample)
• Just a silly sample I found, we decided on no skits on the album because, as PC observed, ‘no one listens to skits’.
The Quadraplex Suite:
• The tracks that made up The Quadraplex EP were always intended to go on the album but, by the time we’d finished them, we realised they really took up a huge chunk of the record. It’s was meant as a trilogy – Hour Glass, Looking Glass and Shattered Glass – made from the sampled sounds of glass and put with a gamelan-type rhythm that changed over time. When we decided it should be a standalone EP we edited together a 4th part – Monocle – from the myriad of versions we’d made (hear even more on PC’s companion mix). It’s still one of my favourite things we ever did so please indulge me on this long middle section of the mix. The resulting section here is threaded together from excerpts from five different versions:
Looking Glass (nearly finished /slower dub) – this is a good 4 bpm slower than the other versions, not sure why, might be the tape it came off running slower or we may have pitched/speed the whole thing up, I can’t remember.
Hour Glass / Shattered Glass (early version) – very minimal early arrangement try out.
Hour Glass / Looking Glass (live drums version) – Patrick was always messing with different percussion effects with this
Looking Glass (early version 1 & 2) – some great EQ/dub FX on this one, watch your headphones/speakers! Parts of this was edited into ‘Monocle’ on The Quadraplex EP.
Stelf (long)
• There are several versions of this – a PC composition – and a shorter take of it was so very nearly track 2 on the album but was dropped by us at quite a late stage. I love it but the Taxi Driver ‘morbid self attention’ spoken word sample could have been problematic and in the end we added Ken Nordine’s vocal to it and it became the ‘Gentle Cruelty’ remix of ‘The Ageing Young Rebel’ for the Xen Cuts compilation later that year.
Nevermore (early version intro)
• A really basic collection of samples which were reworked into ‘Nevermore’ later, laid over the end of ‘Stelf’, not really a track.
Introvert (early version of Nevermore)
• ‘Nevermore‘ started out as a track called ‘Introvert’, in fact, I had so many samples and parts for this track that I ended up splitting them into two tracks (Nocturne and Nevermore). ‘Introvert’ is sort of what was left over and never went any further than this. You can hear the end percussion is all loose and unfinished.
Nevermore (early version outro)
• Strings from the arrangement of ‘Nevermore’ before it was really knocked into shape.
The Ageing Young Rebel (early version w diff middle/end)
• An early arrangement of the backing track where we had the coda as the middle eight/breakdown and then went back into the chorus after an odd little ‘drum solo’. I’d totally forgotten about this and it doesn’t really work which is why we ditched it.
Kenton
• A short little track PC made from a sample at the end of ‘The Ageing Young Rebel’ – this nearly made it on the album too and there’s also a version with some spoken word stuff over the top. I later reworked this (twice) into ‘Theme From Stolen Moments’ on the EPs that preceded ‘The Search Engine’ album. Its title is a clue to the sample source.
A Strange Walk
• A track that eventually became the second version of our remix of Sukia’s ‘Feelin’ Free’ – unreleased by the band as they broke up but later included on the Xen Cuts comp bonus disc under the sub heading ‘Elephants doing the Washing Up’.
Bad Trip (embryonic version of The Crow)
• I’m sure everyone will recognise what this turned into…
8 Track Mind (version 1)
• A spoken word experiment based on brains and mind samples that I got carried away with and that ultimately didn’t work very well. I was obsessed with John Abercrombie’s track, ‘Timeless’ and wanted to make something out of it so badly. It was a huge sample so I remade the track under the spoken word completely for a second version which I now can’t find. You can hear the same ‘ooweeooweyeah’ sample that’s in ‘Hip Operation’ in here too.
Boo Hoo (The Sky At Night early version)
• Here’s a fascinating early version of ‘The Sky At Night’, before the ’crystal pools’ vocal was added and with a different melodic structure.
Crow’s End
• A slightly extended finish to PC’s epic to wrap things up.
If you’ve enjoyed this meander down memory lane I’ve set up a Mixcloud Select channel where, for £2.99 a month, I’ll be uploading vintage Solid Steel mixes from my archive – access that here https://www.mixcloud.com/strictlykev/
Also check out PC’s Minestrone of Sound MIxcloud and Soundcloud channels where he’s been quietly posting all sorts of unreleased audio treats for years.
While we’re on the topic, I’ve asked Ninja Tune to add some releases to the DJ Food Bandcamp page which has been sitting there for ages with not much content. Maybe some of the material from this post will find its way up there as an official release at some point too?
And there’s more… PC found even more material and has done a short Pt.3!
Thanks to everyone who got on board with my new Mixcloud Select channel last week, it really means a lot, please spread the word if you can, there are some treats coming up this month including at least one exclusive that isn’t a vintage show but is a mix of vintage tracks, many never heard before in this form.
This week’s upload is a session I did for Coldcut’s Solid Steel show from 17th of February 1995, at this point still going under the Openmind name for mixes but as you will hear, the Strictly Kev moniker was in place which originated in ’94 on a trip to Amsterdam for the Triplex Festival gig. We would have been working on ‘A Recipe For Disaster’ at this point and I was inducted into the DJ Food project at some point between here and its release in Autumn ’95.
This was the final section of the 2 hour show and I’ve included the break for some vintage KISS FM adverts and jingles of the era, I even left the news on the end to add to the period charm.
Sign up for £2.99 to have access to these recordings, tracklists and notes plus a few exclusives as I put them up https://www.mixcloud.com/strictlykev/
It seems today is the 20th anniversary of ‘Kaleidoscope’, the album PC and I made in 2000 for Ninja Tune. I thought it was more like mid April but a quick look on Discogs shows a promo CD I designed with April 3rd on it so there it is.
We’re still immensely proud of this record and the collaborations with Bundy K. Brown and the late Ken Nordine (RIP) it contains. It also features one of the songs most asked about in the DJ Food discography, ’The Crow’. I’ve lost count of the times this has been used to soundtrack scenes in independent films and it was once adapted for a school orchestra.
PC and I have been digging through our archives for recordings we made around this album – including The Quadraplex EP which was supposed to be a part of it originally but was saved for later. We’re currently compiling selections from them for an anniversary mix that will feature outtakes, alternate versions and other curios from the time.
These will go online later this month via Mixcloud, stay tuned… Meanwhile – the album is available here:
https://ninjatune.net/release/dj-food/kaleidoscope
I missed this last month but the March 2020 issue of Mojo did a feature on the Beastie Boys circa Paul’s Boutique and has asked me for reminisces from the time as well as a photo from the era. I didn’t realise they’d also asked the Dust Brothers, Bill Alder and Chuck D! pretty weird to see my 18 yr old face in that company, especially as I was a rabid fan at the age and would share a bill with the Boys a decade later on the London date of the Hello Nasty tour.
And here’s the original that was taken from, my 18/19 yr old self photographed short after spraying the piece in the background on a friend’s bedroom.
and around the same time with a hand painted jacket I used to wear in college – note graffiti photo join-ups and copies from Subway Art on the wall, car posters and hanging model aircraft were my brother’s. Bottom right, my first stereo that I learnt to scratch on.
Given the times we’re currently in and the loss of gigs and jobs all round, it’s time to open the archives and let people hear all those tapes, DATs and CDRs that have been sitting there for decades. I’ve set up a new subscriber channel via Mixcloud SELECT – and I’ll be uploading exclusive, newly-encoded vintage mixes from my Solid Steel archive regularly for a monthly fee.
I like the Mixcloud model because over half the fee goes to paying royalties for the artists being played, Mixcloud take a cut for providing the service and then I get a bit for all those hours spent making the mixes in the first place. The fee is £2.99 a month (although you can pay more if you wish) and for that you’ll have access to mixes from my personal stash (some pictured below).
These will date back to the 90’s and even predate Solid Steel occasionally, they’ll all be mixes that I’ve made or occasionally collaborated on. I’ll endeavour to make sure none of them are currently available anywhere else and include track lists and making-of details where I can. These will be exclusive to subscribers only for the foreseeable future, I’ll still upload free new mixes to my regular Mixcloud account but subscribers will also have some exclusive new mixes that I make specially for several months ahead of them being made public – sign up here
The first one is the complete session PC & I did for John Peel’s legendary BBC Radio 1 show 20 years ago this month, just before the release of our Kaleidoscope album. Only half of it was broadcast at the time and I’ve restored it from CDRs I found recently.
Track notes: (Mixcloud’s word count is quite low for text so I’m adding notes here)
A restored version of the original session PC and I did for the late John Peel just before the release of our Kaleidoscope album. This was jammed out live on 4 decks in my studio at the time in Camberwell and then overlaid with spoken word later.
I think we were way too over-eager on the first half with all the scratching but some of it manages to be pretty humorous in places. It all gets way deeper once we calm down and I was surprised how ambient it got, listening back.
It’s very rough and ready but you have to remember that this is completely improvised on 4 decks with one of us ‘driving’ the mix and the other embellishing it in response at different points. This is how PC and I worked, I can’t think of any time that we rehearsed anything in the same way that DK and I did later for our 4-deck shows.
The intro and outro skits are from a great album called ‘Miniatures’, 1 min sketches and songs compiled by Morgan Fisher in the 80s, when we knew we were doing a John Peel session I thought it’d be a laugh to have ‘John’ introduce the mix. The Steady track, ‘Alarming Frequency’ is the first ever release on the Tru Thoughts label. The Leonard Nimoy read of Ray Bradbury‘s ‘Marionettes Inc.’ turned up in another form a year later on our first Solid Steel mix CD. The Spontaneous Sound gong record is actually an alias of Christopher Tree, a percussionist whose album I found in the US one time, it had virtually no info on it other than the title and the stamp of a drum shop where it had been sold.
I had to look up some of these tracks using Shazam and Discogs, both still twinkles in a programmer’s eye at the time this mix was made, twenty years is a long time ago but we’ll be going even further back soon…
John Peel session track list:
Norman Lovett – John Peel Sings The Blues Badly (Pipe Records)
David Shire – The Taking of Pelham 123 (Music On Vinyl)
Steady – Alarming Frequency (Try Thoughts)
Tortoise – Died (UNKLE Bruise Blood mix (Thrill Jockey)
Ray Bradbury read by Leonard Nimoy – Marionettes Inc. (Nonesuch)
RYU – Rhythm Asobi (feat. DJ Krush & Tunde Ayanyemi) (Cross)
Spontaneous Sound – Spontaneous Sound (Private Pressing)
Sun Ra monologue from Space Is The Place film
Rhythm Devils – The Apocalypse Now Sessions (Passport Records)
Fridge – Of (remix) (Go! Beat)
Kid Koala – Tricks & Treats (Ninja Tune)
Slowly – On The Loose (Autechre remix) (Chill Out Label)
Eric B & Rakim – Follow the Leader (acappella) (4th & Broadway)
Bushflange – Redokov (Hard Hands)
Child’s View – Shift (Blue Note)
Kid Koala – Scurvy (Ninja Tune)
DJ Food – Turntable improv
Major Force – Sitting On the Edge Of The World (Apeman Records)
George Duke – North Beach (MPS Records)
Morton Subotnik – Silver Apples of the Moon loop
Weather Report – Milky Way (Columbia)
Herbie Hancock – Raindance (Columbia)
Unknown breakbeat
Andy Partridge – The History of Rock ’n’ Roll (Pipe Records)
During Mother Nature’s current reminder that we’re mere tiny specks in the scheme of things it felt right not to go to the Book & Record Bar to record my guest slot for Out of the Wood radio. Seeing as the date for the set was Mother’s Day I thought I’d use this as a theme so here’s a mother lode of tunes to see you through and remind us that we should always respect our mothers.
Tears For Fears – Mothers Talk (Extended version)
Fun-da-mental – Mother India (Moody Boyz Spirit of the Tiger mix)
Ramsey Lewis – Mother Natures’s Son
Hodges, James and Smith – Momma
DJ Food – Your Mother
Goldie – Mother (excerpt 1)
Genesis – Mama
The Herbaliser – Another Mother
Funkadelic – Music For Your Mother
Parliament – Mothership Connection
Paul McCartney – Momma Miss America
Jonny Guitar Watson – A Real Mother For Ya
Pharcyde – Ya Mama (J Swift UK remix)
Roxanne Shante – Big Momma
Queen Latifah – Mama Gave Birth To The Soul Children (The Infant Mix)
Lyn Collins w. The J.B.s – Mama Feelgood
James Brown – Mother Popcorn
Kool & The Gang – Mother Earth
Derek & Clive – Alfie Noakes
The Mothers of Invention – Motherly Love
Pink Floyd – Atom Heart Mother (excerpt)
Blue Pearl – Mother Dawn (The Orb Buckateer Mix 1)
Goldie – Mother (excerpt 2)
Julian Cope – Peggy Suicide is Missing
The Rolling Stones – Mother’s Little Helper
Can – Mother Sky
Jonny Zamot – Hey Mama
Lonely Island feat Justin Timberlake – Motherlover
To mark the release of the excellent new Type 303 release on 45 Live Records – Sticky Disko / Analogue Acidbath – I was asked by label head and fellow acid 45 collector, Pete Isaac, to make a promo mix to celebrate. ‘Acid Valentine’ is my love letter to both old and new acid on the 7″ format, showcasing a lot of contemporary releases as well as a clutch of old classics too.
I’ve been getting into B sides a lot recently, going back to the well-worn bangers of the day and turning them over for dubs, forgotten tracks or alternate mixes seldom played out. So you get Arcade Fantasy from A Guy Called Gerald rather than Voodoo Ray, the Suck Mix of Bam Bam‘s Where’s Your Child and the Dub Mix of Longsy D’s This Is Ska instead of the overplayed A sides.
Of the newer releases, most are recent or from the last 5 years or so and pressing runs are way lower than back in the day. DimDJ’s Aerotrak was only produced on flexidisc in an edition of 50 from Greek label Kinetik and Chevron‘s Smud 7″ wasn’t even sold, just given to DJs who had supported the Balkan Vinyl label. All that to say, the scene is in rude health and 7″s both old and new are still turning up, I thought I’d pretty much grabbed everything from the classic late 80s era but there are still a handful out there to find…
To grab a copy of the Type 303 7″ just go here
What a grim end to the year and the decade, good riddance to the last four years at least. Writing this on the morning of Friday 13th as the results and fallout of the election come in, it’s hard to muster the energy and will to rejoice in anything when the turkeys have voted for Xmas. I used to be largely ignorant of current affairs and politics, back in my youth, I thought it was dull and boring, why would I be interested in any of that? But you grow up, you have a family and these things start to matter because they affect your life whether you like it or not. Back in the first half of December it felt like there was still hope, a chance to pull things back from the brink, but not now when the country has voted overwhelmingly for Johnson’s government in the belief that he will fix things that he helped engineer in the first place.
Sometimes I wish I was ignorant again, as ignorant as those who didn’t vote or voted on personalities, believing the lies and propaganda peddled by the media. But you can’t just turn that tap off, not once you’ve understood how the system works and see the soap opera play out. You CAN however blot it out for a bit by reading, watching, visiting or listening to great art made by your fellow man, or woman or non-identifying person. There was a lot of it this year and here’s some of the favourite ways I blotted parts of this year out.
Music / podcasts – way too much new music to keep up with only so much time and money, I probably listened to Adam Buxton‘s shows from the archive more than anything else this year:
Pye Corner Audio – Hollow Earth LP (Ghost Box)
Various – Corroded Circuits EP 12″ (Downfall Recordings)
Chris Moss Acid – Heavy Machine 12″ (Balkan Vinyl)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Fishing For Fishes LP (Flightless)
Pictogram – Trace Elements cassette (Miracle Pond)
Vanishing Twin – The Age of Immunology LP (Fire Records)
Big Mouth podcast (various) (Acast)
Beans – Triptych LP (Gamma Proforma)
Roisin Murphy – Incapable single (Skint)
Ebony Steel Band – Pan Machine LP (Om Swagger)
People Like Us – The Mirror LP (Discrepant)
Coastal County – Coastal County LP (Lomas)
Adam Buxton podcast (various) (Acast)
Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Song For Paul LP (Karma Chief)
Jon Brooks – Emotional Freedom Techniques LP (Cafe Kaput)
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard – Organ Farmer (from Infest the Rat’s Nest LP) (Flightless)
Jane Weaver – Fenella LP (Fire Records)
Polypores – Brainflowers cassette (Miracle Pond)
Seemed to acquire a lot of tapes this year too…
Design / packaging – so much good stuff out there, Nick Taylor goes from strength to strength, Reuben Sutherland‘s work for Sculpture always inspires and Victoria Topping continues to do great art for On The Corner Records:
Pepe Deluxé – The Surrealist Woman lathe cut 7″ (Catskills)
Various – Science & Technology ERR Rec Library Vol.2 (ERR Records)
DJ Pierre presents ACID 88 vol. III LP (Afro Acid)
Mark Ayres plays Wendy Carlos – Kubrick 7″ (Silva Screen)
Tomorrow Syndicate – Citizen Input 10″ (Polytechnic Youth)
The Utopia Strong – S/T LP (Rocket Recordings)
Jarvis – Sunday Service LP (ACE records)
Andy Votel – Histoire D’Horreur cassette (Hypocrite?)
Sculpture – Projected Music 5″ zoetrope picture disc (Psyché Tropes)
Lapalux – Amnioverse LP (Brainfeeder)
Hieroglyphic Being – Synth Expressionism / Rhythmic Cubism LP (On The Corner Records)
Film / TV – I really don’t watch too much TV or get to the cinema as often as I’d like to:
Sculpture – Meeting Our Associates (Plastic Infinite)
This Time with Alan Partridge (BBC)
Avengers: Endgame (Disney/Marvel)
Imaginary Landscapes – Sam Campbell (Vinyl Factory)
What We Do In The Shadows (BBC2)
The Mandalorian (Disney+)
Books / Comics / Magazines – I read constantly, all sorts of stuff, a lot online, I found less interesting new comics this year or there were fewer that made an impression. Also many of my regular reads came to an end so there was less to consume on that front.
Beastie Boys Book – Mike Diamond & Adam Horowitz (Spiegel & Grau)
Cosmic Comics – A Kevin O’Neill Miscellany (Hibernia Books)
Electronic Sound (Pam Comm Ltd)
Eve Stranger – David Barnett / Philip Bond (Black Crown)
Bicycle Day – Brian Blomerth (Anthology Editions)
Moebius – 40 Days In The Desert (expanded edition) (Moebius Productions)
Rock Graphic Originals – Peter Golding w. Barry Miles (Thames & Hudson)
2000AD / Judge Dredd Megazine (Rebellion)
Silver Surfer Black – Donny Cates/Tradd Moore (Marvel)
Help – Simon Amstell (Square Peg)
The Scarfolk Annual – Richard Littler (William Collins)
Wrappers Delight – Jonny Trunk (Fuel)
Gigs / Events – I spent a lot of time in Café Oto, socialising to the sights and sounds of Jonny Trunk & Martin Green or watching groups that featured Cathy Lucas this year:
Vanishing Twin @ Prince of Wales Pub, Brighton
Stereolab @ Concorde 2, Brighton
People’s Vote march 23rd March, London
Wobbly Sounds book launch @ Spiritland, London
Confidence Man @ The Electric, Brixton, London
Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul Festival, Moseley, Birmingham
Bluedot Festival, Jodrell Bank, Manchester
HaHa Sounds Collective play David Axelrod’s Earth Rot @ Tate Exchange, London
School of Hypnosis play In C @ Cafe Oto, London
Palace Electrics, Antenna Studios, London
The Delaware Road, New Zealand Farm, Salisbury
Breaking Convention closing party, Greenwich, London
Jonny Trunk & Martin Green’s Hidden Library @ Spiritland, Southbank, London
Negativland / People Like Us @ Cafe Oto, London
HaHa Sound Collective plays the David Axelrod songbook @ The Church of Sound, London,
Sculpture, Janek Schaefer, Mariam Rezaei + the 26 turntable ensemble @ The Old Baths, Hackney, London Vanishing Twin & Jane Weaver’s Fenella @ Studio 9294, Hackney Wick, London
Exhibitions – there was so much art to see in 2019, I managed most of it but London does spoil you sometimes and you can’t see it all. Just a stroll round the Brick Lane area of east London will delight with the free art painted, stuck or sprayed on the walls for all to see:
Sister Corita Kent @ House of Illustration, London,
Augustinbe Kofie @ Stolen Space, London,
Victor Vasarely @ Pompidou Centre, Paris,
Mary Quant @ V&A Museum, London,
Stanley Kubrick @ The Design Museum, London,
Tim Hunkin’s Novelty Automation Museum, London,
Keith Haring retrospective @Tate, Liverpool,
Nam June Paik, Tate Modern, London,
Takis @ Tate Modern, London,
Shepard Fairy @ Stolen Space, London,
Damien Hirst ‘Mandalas’ at the White Cube, London,
Bridget Riley @ The Hayward, London,
Museum of Neo-liberalism, Lewisham, London.
Another year over and what have I done? quite pleased with this lot this year:
Become by own agent for the first half of the year (not fun)
Designed As One’s ‘Communion’ LP sleeve for De:tuned
Toured my Kraftwerk: Klassics, Kovers & Kurios AV set
Contributed to the Wobbly Sounds book on flexi discs published by Four Corner Books
Performed a 30 minute reimagining of Kraftwerk’s ‘Radio-Activity’ album
Appeared on Big Mouth, Out Of The Wood, Jonny Trunk’s OST, Dusk Dubs, Mix-Ins, 45 Live, Mostly Sounds podcasts / shows
Continued the design for De:tuned’s 10th anniversary with a 10th volume, poster, tote bag and more
Built a modified turntable with three extra floating arms for future performances
Designed a fold out 3″ CD Xmas card for The Real Tuesday Weld – more to come in 2020…
For no other reason – Badges, along with the cassettes it’s like the 80s never stopped
RIP: Daryl Dragon, Ron Smith, Ken Nordine, Peter Tork, Mark Hollis, Keith Flint, Magenta Devine, Hal Blaine, Scott Walker, Quentin Fiore, Dr John, MAD magazine, Vertigo comics, Rutger Hauer, Ras G, Peter Fonda, Richard Williams, Pedro Bell, David Cain, Patsy Colegate, Clive James, David Bellamy, Phase 2, Gershon Kingsley, Emil Richards, Dave Riley (Big Black), Vaughn Oliver, Neil Innes, Syd Mead.
Looking forward to: – not much to look forward to except a year of Brexit, economic downturn and US Presidential campaigns but these might lighten the mood…
Paul Weller and Plone on Ghost Box
A Touched Music special release in conjunction with De:tuned for World Cancer Day – 4th Feb.
The second Revbjelde LP, ‘Hooha Hubbub’, from the Buried Treasure label
More designs for The Real Tuesday Weld…
The next Group Modular album, released on a UK label
The Castles In Space label releasing a remastered vinyl version of Clocolan’s excellent 2019, cassette-only, ‘It’s Not Too Early For Each Other’ album.
The return of Slow Death Comix
45 Live releasing their first acid 7” with Type 303 in Feb
Ian Holloway from The British Space Group’s new label, Wyrd Britain – the first release will be his own ‘The Ley of the Land’.
The Amorphous Androgynous album, ‘Listening Beyond The Head Chakra’ and album-length single, ‘We Persuade Ourselves That We Are Immortal’ around Easter
Ninja Tune’s 30th anniversary in the Autumn
An exhibition about electronic music at the Design Museum featuring Kraftwerk, Jeff Mills, Ellen Allien, Jean-Michel Jarre and BBC Radiophonic Workshop among others
The Masters of British Comic Art book by David Roach in April
The return of Spitting Image (we really need this)
Happy New Year x
A huge night coming up on November the 29th in East London, Psyché Tropes celebrate the release of the 5″ picture disc of locked grooves Sculpture have done with them by putting on a gig of avant garde turntablism. Janek Schaefer, Mariam Rezaei and Sculpture themselves will be headlining and interspersed will be a 26 turntable ensemble made up of: A’Bear, Arran Bolders, Ben Rodgers, Billy Pleasant, Bjorn Hatleskog, Blanca Regina, Chloe Frieda, Chris Thomas Allen (The Light Surgeons), Dan Hayhurst (Sculpture), Daniel WJ MacKenzie, DJ Food, Graham Dunning, Hems, Horton Jupiter, Janek Schaefer, Lia Mice, Mariam Rezaei, Merkaba Macabre, Odd Lust, Pierre Bouvier Patron, Rado Bogasch, Reuben Sutherland (Sculpture), Robin The Fog (Howlround), Spatial, Tida Bradshaw, Tom Richards.
I doubt the same people will ever be in the same place on 26 turntables ever again – should be a riot!
The record is great and available here and tickets for the event are available here for the absolute steal of £5.
I was asked to do a mix of soul, funk and jazz for Mostly Sounds who run the Mostly Jazz Funk & Soul festival in Birmingham which was one of the most fun gigs party-wise for me this summer. There’s an amazing amount of great music around at the moment that roughly falls into this category so this was the perfect place to get all that down in one mix.
Silke Schwinger & Fatty George – WeiBer Sand (Digatone)
The Relations – She Only Wanted To Be With You (Spun Out Of Control)
Ghost Funk Orchestra – Seven Eight (Karma Chief)
Coastal County – The Drop (Lomas)
The Karminsky Experience Inc. – Summer Storm (Patterns of Behaviour)
Vanishing Twin – Cryonic Suspension May Save Your Life (Fire Records)
Coastal County – The Landing (Lomas)
Serge Gainsbourg & Jean Claude Vannier – Les Chemins De Katmandou (opening titles) (Finders Keepers)
Jane Weaver – Mission Desire (Fire Records)
Jorge Navarro – Repartamos El Funky (Mukatsuku)
Popera Cosmic – Batman (Finders Keepers)
Ghost Funk Orchestra – Skin I’m In (Karma Chief)
The Karminsky Experience Inc. – Gemini Calling (Patterns of Behaviour)
Serge Gainsbourg & Jean Claude Vannier – Le Roi Des Phlébotomes (Finders Keepers)
Planet Battagon – Moon Of Dysnomia (On The Corner Records)
Silke Schwinger & Fatty George – StraBenfahrt durch Wien (Digatone)
Vanishing Twin – Backstroke (Fire Records)
Ebony Steel Band – Spacelab (Om Swagger)
Ghost Funk Orchestra – A Conversation (Karma Chief)
The excellent To Pikap record shop and bar in Thessaloniki, Greece asked me to pick five records from their racks while I was there last year and talk a little bit about them. Here’s what I chose…
The good people at Dusk Dubs asked me to assemble a playlist of influences and important records so I picked songs jumping off from the Dust & Grooves influences mix I did a few years back, which roughly cut off in the early 90s. I’ve rewound a few years back into the end of the 80s but the bulk of the music comes from the decade after. This isn’t a mix and I’ve only selected the content rather than constructed the flow, as is the Dusk Dubs way, There are notes to go with each selection over on their site to put each track into context too. Listen HERE
I recently bought Phase to add to my DJ set up and thought I’d set down some initial thoughts about it.
A quick overview for those who haven’t come across it before – Phase works with digital Digital Vinyl Systems (DVS) like Serato and Traktor which use a traditional turntable and a controller record/soundcard combo to control the music. Traditionally the turntable needle reads timecode on a vinyl disc and relays that back to a laptop containing software with 2 virtual decks, the turntable becomes a controller for these decks, onto which you drag and drop music from your laptop to play out.
Phase consists of two ‘remotes’ that magnetically clip over the turntable spindle onto any record or object that you wish to use to control it with (it doesn’t have to be a timecoded record). The remotes then send a wireless signal back to the Phase receiver (which doubles as a charger) telling it where the orientation of the turntable deck is.
This is relayed back to the laptop via USB * UPDATE 1 (via Anton – Mr Armtone) “Remotes just send a wireless signal back to the Phase receiver and it reproduces classic audio time-code signal as on timecode vinyl or CDs. If you turning on “THRU” signal on Serato – you’ll hear it. That’s why you need to connect Phase by RCA to your Serato sound-cart (mixer, box, midi-controller). Also, you can connect Phase directly into power socket by USB-adapter, like an iPhone, and thereby to make free one USB port on your Laptop. So, USB on Phase is only needed to update and as a power source.”
– and you have control over your virtual decks without having to use the needle on record method of old.
Why would you add this to your set up when the traditional DVS set up works just fine? With decks and DVS systems comes the problem of worn needles, dust on the stylus inhibiting the signal, bent tonearms, scratched vinyl controller records, bad headshell contact connections and knackered RCA plugs – all of which can corrupt the timecode being relayed back to the laptop and cause glitches, pitch distortions and dropouts. I’ve done so many gigs where the scopes on Serato have wavered, dipped into the red with onstage feedback, dust has built up and glitched out the signal or headshells wouldn’t connect at soundcheck and you’re constantly in fear of everything packing up.
All completely eradicated when using Phase and it’s great to eliminate these potential technical failures from the set up when going to different venues where the equipment is always unknown. Personally I’ve always loved the tactile touch of turntables, never got on with CDJs and, similarly, never found a controller that I’d be happy to use – mostly because of the size of things I suspect – and any working turntable with pitch control can be used with Phase.
There are problems with it but they seem to be more about human error than machine at this stage. The first is remembering which deck is playing the music and not moving the one spinning accidentally, I scratched/stopped the wrong deck twice during a 4 hour set. Also not using the needle, which is an automatic action after all these years, takes a bit of getting used to, not helped in my recent DJ set by the fact that I was also alternating between DVS and actual vinyl playing. The remotes can get in the way when rewinding the decks via the label and there’s no more tweaking the spindle for those micro pitch shifts as the remote sits over them. It does come with an added level of cables to plug in, if you want simplicity and not to have to carry an extra bit of (very small) kit then go for RekordBox and a couple of USBs in a CDJ. This would come down to each individual’s preference when playing ultimately. I’ve seen people questioning the responsiveness of the remotes online but it all seems to be good for me, maybe there was the tiniest bit of lag when scratching but I can’t be sure, it’s certainly minimal if it’s there and remember, this is new hardware/software, it takes time to iron out the kinks, Serato wasn’t perfect straight out the box either.
BTW, I should say, the design of it is beautiful, clean and slick packaging with tasteful minimal touches to the compact hardware. The software that comes with it is equally minimal at the moment, there’s plenty of scope to expand that but nice touches like customising the colour of the lights on the remotes and magnetic stickers to affix them to your records are welcome. I’d like to see versions in other colours rather than the standard black that everyone does (why are so many mixers in black which are just hard to see in a dark club?). An ‘A’ and ‘B’ on the actual remotes so that you can remember which is which would be good too and making the signal light green instead of red (the traditional bad signal colour) in Serato would be good but I suspect this is more to do with how Serato set up their app. *UPDATE 2 “Another interesting fact, that this signal from Phase doesn’t support officially, that’s why it comes with “red line” (not grey) on Serato software.”
I only gave it a light test run, no video yet (not that that should make a difference – it’s just sending timecode, not streaming video data) but I loved using it and I didn’t have any problems with them beside my own human errors. They will take a little getting used to but they replace the use for a needle perfectly and personally Phase works for me and I’ll be using it for digital DJ sets going forward.